The Pete Best of internet animation
Age 28, Male
hey!
Joined on 8/23/08
Glad to see you following you passions man!
I think 50% of people change from what they started in college. It took me a year to find something I enjoyed, and I switched paths.
You've been consistently drawing for years, whereas I've totally slacked off. My resolution is to genuinely improve my drawing skills and techniques this year. Maybe I'll be at your level by the end of 2015 ;)
Glad to hear you're still around! Got any games in the works?
I have a fine arts degree and science degree(s) and I find this to be true for most (if not all) courses/degrees that don't require a live hands on approach!! For example, some of the laboratory equipment, expensive technology, actual exercises that involves real interaction with people cannot be fully grasped online, but anything involving textbooks, theoretical learning, or learning/creating that is computer based- is simply a scam to pay tens of thousands of dollars for such methods of learning in and of themselves, no matter how good the teacher is. At the end of the day everyone is their own teacher, where self-learning is becoming an exceedingly efficient process in this new digital age of information...
But the more salient points here are: can you find the same level and amount of connections?? sure, in the art world, the work speaks for itself, but what if someone who is equally as talented as you is applying for a job, and it comes down to selecting the person who has a fancy certificate from an accredited institution?? And lastly, as good as the internet has become for a social environment, it simply cannot replicate the the same qualities of the educational experience in person IMO. A degree would also broaden your options for teaching, which likely sounds silly to you know, but may not much later in life.
You certainly do come across as having a larger than desired ego!! But I won't judge. I cannot speak about "video game school", but the same "issue" is plentiful amongst freshman audits in music school, where students hope to become the next "rock star" without having much knowledge of music as an art form. Which is fine, because everyone should explore their interests, dig deeper and find out if it's the right line of work for them after getting a better understanding of what that life is really about...Secondly, it's okay if their talent is not up to snuff, that's what school is for! The not-so serious students will eventually weed out and you will surely find more talented and committed people once you reach upper-division classes.
Keep on keeping on with the artistic pursuits!!
Man, I forgot I was 16 when I made that.
I think your college rants are good reads. My college experience so far has come with its own share of disappointments in the art department, mostly because it feels like all students are very seriously expected to become the next Van Gogh, rather than to appreciate art as they see fit and pursue their own dreams. I feel like all I learned in my first trimester was how NOT to think about art.
I'm really only going to college to pass time and satisfy my parents, but I guess it's not all bad. It's a way to get exposed to another world, at least.
Yeah I did a games course and YUP! You got it! That's what it's like.
Just keep pushing along with your own stuff at home and expand yourself how you personally want to.
Don't slow down because you're ahead though, cos in the professional world out here you're still a kid!
Newgrounds is the right place for you right now, but it won't be forever. Make more games and make a living, take opportunities when they come up, you might be good!
School does look more and more questionable when you grow up on-line and the universities just don't seem to be keeping up with the information and talent you're already surrounded by. One plus side is that school FORCES you to make something and it puts you next to people who can show you how to do it - which is great for learning new software and tools if you learn best by having someone sit next to you and show you (I traditionally learn best that way but a good on-line tutorial works wonders nowadays).
They didn't have a video game major when I went to school so the classes I took didn't have a big impact on what I was doing with NG and web games on the side. I do credit college however with introducing me to people who were very important to the growth of NG - Ross did the original PHP/Mysql programming, Tim was the original sys-admin and Bob replaced me on the HTML side and brought us into the age of CSS and all that stuff.
The interesting thing though is that my second business - the Behemoth - was founded by connections I made through Newgrounds. Also, the current Newgrounds staff is 100% people who I met through Newgrounds. So while the college connections were vital in the late 90s, so much since has been the connections I made here on NG.
You might meet some really talented people at school and go on to start a company, but you already have talented friends here on NG who might want to start a company. That's really cool. Good to have options, at least!
hey marty nice work good school keep it up
Here's the thing with art colleges, or rather colleges in general, school is there to just say "hey look, World, a professional with a license graded my work and said it was A-O.K~! ;D". It's not entirely there to teach you any thing, (though it does help for those beginners who go into a degree for something they've never even done before), it's really there for someone with credentials and merits to go, "Hey, this person is alright in my book, hire them, please.", and you just have to hope the employer you want believes them when you show your college degree.
I used to down college before too, especially public/community colleges [only for thing in creative instances, because I don't believe one can teach skill B^)], because that's where you get the teachers that not only don't care about what they're teaching, but also may not even know themselves! I went to a community college for an art degree, and was very disappointing in the classes I got; art is newly being seen as something worth a degree, and is heavily mixed with code/HTML/programing (something I loath), however, like you, I've learned all of my (flash) animating skills and drawing from online, starting with simple internet searches back in middle school. Long story short on my college experience, my major (computer animation) got cut from the school, so I dropped out; however, my experience there, which have also been agreed with by my art teachers, was that school for alternative people who likes turning "hobbies" into careers (my example being art) is just there to have a license college and professor(s) back you up in the future when you go job hunting, by signing their name on your degree.
At this time, I will say I didn't learn anything at my college (because I already learned all they wanted to teach me from self studying online), but it would have been nice (not to mention it's required in most cases) if I had a bachelors saying "Look, World, I is professional in the words of [insert college here], so pay me!"
I've always got games in the works, now it's just a matter of getting them out there...
I have 2 that we've decided to stop tinkering with and cap it for release. So I'm hoping to be looking for sponsors soon.
Fuck jaltoid
Magical-Zorse
I've been telling people art school is a fucking waste of money for years.